whumptober 2020 ------ day 14. branding
@whumptober2020 Rebelcaptain Hunger Games AU: Cassian is Jyn’s mentor in the 70th Hunger Games. After being crowned victor at fifteen years old, Cassian is all-too-familiar with what it takes to bring a tribute home, and what becoming a victor really means.
content warnings: references to prostitution, brief reference to self harm
previous: day 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13
A capite ad calcem was the phrase inscribed as the Remake Center’s motto. It came from an old language, older than English, or so Cassian’s been told. Fittingly enough, it meant From head to toe; within its glittering glass façade, anyone could be remade in the Capitol’s image. For its citizens, that meant youth regeneration and body sculpting and face lifts and skin dyes and whatever the latest fashion trend was. In the Capitol, a body was meant to be decorated, celebrated, and admired—unless it was a tribute’s. For them, the Remake Center was only the first stop in remaking them for the Capitol’s rapacious consumption.
The first time Cassian went through remake, he hadn’t noticed before how much each freckle and scar comprised his individuality. Not until they were all vanished as part of his preparation for the Games. He didn’t have time to contemplate how he felt about it until afterwards, after he was flown to the Remake Center from the arena where all the injuries he had sustained during the Games just… disappeared. The technology in the Capital worked like magic, leaving his skin polished smooth, hairless, unblemished. That first morning when he woke up in a real bed, as he looked at his pristine hands, he could almost believe the Hunger Games was only a nightmare. But only the Capitol could make him suffer so, while leaving no scars.
It’s not like he had any strong attachments to those old marks. It was just that he liked knowing what stories they told: there was a scar on his lower back from falling out of a tree. There was a birth mark on his chest, and another on his foot. Then there were the tan lines the sun bestowed on him every summer. A mole here and there. Remake had gotten rid of all of them.
Cassian isn’t sure what story his skin tells now—with each visit to the Remake Center, his skin is wiped anew. It didn’t matter what was done to him last night or whatever he was forced to do. It didn’t matter what he did to it personally, either; what new freckles appeared from time spent under the sun or if he cut it himself. With each skin wipe it was all the same: his skin changed back to an flawless, unsullied, immaculate state—devoid of any story to tell.
Maybe it does have one story: as a blank page for anyone to scrawl their desires in. A canvas for anyone’s lusts.
